Why EQ a sound doesn't change timbre?

[Nowhk]

A perfect example of how you are overconfident in your knowledge. This is partly true and partly a myth. As I said, there is research on this. Further you clearly miss the point. Whether they share the same timbre or not depends completely on how we measure timbre.
...
Here you go, I did your homework for you

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... -new-ones/

No, that's a perfect example you don't get my point yet
I know the Fritz's experiment (its a famous one in this sector), but it has nothing to do with what we are discussing here. I take the wiki link, which is more "common":

"asked judges and participants at the 2010 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis to choose the violin they preferred from a pool of three modern violins, two Stradivariuses, and one Guarneri 'del Gesu'.".
"they preferred", not "they are able to select a vintage violin". This simply proof that modern violins are not shit rather the old ones. If you think so, that's mith, I totally agree. Like to say digital synth or VST are shit rather than analog (old) one. Total bullshit, I agree.

Study finds classic instruments not always the best., not "Violinist can't choose old ones".
They simply "choose" your favourite one. So they theoretically have been distinguish between them. I say "theoretically" because the test is "vague", it says nothing about the percentage of which partecipants choose them "randomly" or not. So again, its vague... you can't rely on it. The test makes sense if "100% of partecipants didn't have a clue of the differences and choose one of it random". But its not this way.

You seem overconfident on this.

Asking us if we can hear two different speakers is just a stupid question, of course we can. It still doesn't matter and you have no evidence whatsoever that it actually matters to you, let alone anyone else.

"It still doesn't matter" is again your only personal opinion, against my hypothesis (its just a fXXXXXg hypothesis, not a claim; I'm still not sure myself. This is what trigger this discussion) that maybe it could matter.

[Nowhk]

A perfect example of how you are overconfident in your knowledge. This is partly true and partly a myth. As I said, there is research on this. Further you clearly miss the point. Whether they share the same timbre or not depends completely on how we measure timbre.
...
Here you go, I did your homework for you

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... -new-ones/

No, that's a perfect example you don't get my point yet
I know the Fritz's experiment (its a famous one in this sector), but it has nothing to do with what we are discussing here. I take the wiki link, which is more "common":

"asked judges and participants at the 2010 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis to choose the violin they preferred from a pool of three modern violins, two Stradivariuses, and one Guarneri 'del Gesu'.".
"they preferred", not "they are able to select a vintage violin". This simply proof that modern violins are not shit rather the old ones. If you think so, that's mith, I totally agree. Like to say digital synth or VST are shit rather than analog (old) one. Total bullshit, I agree.

Study finds classic instruments not always the best., not "Violinist can't choose old ones".
They simply "choose" your favourite one. So they theoretically have been distinguish between them. I say "theoretically" because the test is "vague", it says nothing about the percentage of which partecipants choose them "randomly" or not. So again, its vague... you can't rely on it. The test makes sense if "100% of partecipants didn't have a clue of the differences and choose one of it random". But its not this way.

You seem overconfident on this.

EDIT: the same Laurie Niles sustain this (and I discover it right now, after writing the above).

Asking us if we can hear two different speakers is just a stupid question, of course we can. It still doesn't matter and you have no evidence whatsoever that it actually matters to you, let alone anyone else.

"It still doesn't matter" is again your only personal opinion, against my hypothesis (its just a fXXXXXg hypothesis, not a claim, because I'm still not sure myself; thats what trigger this discussion) that maybe it could matter.

[slipstick]

"It still doesn't matter" is again your only personal opinion, against my hypothesis (its just a fXXXXXg hypothesis, not a claim, because I'm still not sure myself; thats what trigger this discussion) that maybe it could matter.

My word, you're still at it. Somewhere in the last 15-16 pages things may have got a little confused.

Why don't you help things along by stating your hypothesis for us as clearly and as succinctly as possible? What exactly is it that you hypothesise?

Steve

[ghettosynth]

A perfect example of how you are overconfident in your knowledge. This is partly true and partly a myth. As I said, there is research on this. Further you clearly miss the point. Whether they share the same timbre or not depends completely on how we measure timbre.
...
Here you go, I did your homework for you

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... -new-ones/

No, that's a perfect example you don't get my point yet
I know the Fritz's experiment (its a famous one in this sector), but it has nothing to do with what we are discussing here. I take the

You said:

Do two distinct violins share the same timbre?

No they don't! Its easily to catch differences for trained violinist.

Fritz says:

Despite a general belief among violinists that Stradivari and Guarneri violins are tonally superior, the participants in Fritz's test could not reliably distinguish such instruments from modern violins.

You should read the study. The participants were asked to gauge the age of the violins and they could not. So it's not simply about preference. A perfect example of how you are seeking evidence to support your forgone conclusion without understanding it. You are, as they say in the business, "cherry picking" data to support your beliefs. That's not science my friend.

wiki link, which is more "common":

"asked judges and participants at the 2010 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis to choose the violin they preferred from a pool of three modern violins, two Stradivariuses, and one Guarneri 'del Gesu'.".
"they preferred", not "they are able to select a vintage violin". This simply proof that modern violins are not shit rather the old ones. If you think so, that's mith, I totally agree. Like to say digital synth or VST are shit rather than analog (old) one. Total bullshit, I agree.

Again, read the study, there's more to it than that. They could not consistently tell which were the Strads and which were not.

Of course not everyone likes these results, and of course these results aren't "perfect." That is the nature of research, work is built on prior knowledge. At the moment you've presented nothing to support anything. Your blanket over a speaker test is silly, you wasted your time, just like you're wasting ours now.

[Nowhk]

You should read the study. The participants were asked to gauge the age of the violins and they could not. So it's not simply about preference. A perfect example of how you are seeking evidence to support your forgone conclusion without understanding it. You are, as they say in the business, "cherry picking" data to support your beliefs. That's not science my friend.

It seems you do the same honestly, reading only what you want

"Another participant, Laurie Niles, criticized the study's characterizations, stating that she wasn't asked to identify old vs. new violins, only to state her preferences. She also noted that the organizers adjusted the new violins, while the old violins were in whatever state the lender had them. She said, "I think we can conclude that, with a very limited amount of playing time and under circumstances that are a lot like those in a violin shop (a dry room, lots of testing), we are just as impressed with the tonality of great new instruments as with the tonality of great old ones." She added, "Honestly, I have no issue with the idea that a well-made modern can sound as good as an $8 million Strad. The moderns I played under these odd circumstances were just beautiful-sounding. The old Italians were, too. This is good news for us violinists, because virtually none of us can afford a multi-million dollar Strad."[14]"

Damned cherry picking Laurie...

That is the nature of research, work is built on prior knowledge

If somethings works at the 90% of the cases, this doesn't mean you can totally rely on it. You can just ignore it and assume "if it works, let it works and go on". I agree, but that's not the case here.

I'll do another dumb question (yeah, it will of course), but would be nice if you ramp down from your master stepladder and give the answer.

When you says (for n times) "it doesn't matter" when speaking about variances introduced by setups/environment, do you mean (talking about a human kind's long time and singolar period listening) "it doesn't because he won't really perceive the differences" or "it doesn't because the differences will be so small so that he will ignore them"?

Easy question I think. You can also reply with "the first" or "the latter". Pretty curious...

[ghettosynth]

You should read the study. The participants were asked to gauge the age of the violins and they could not. So it's not simply about preference. A perfect example of how you are seeking evidence to support your forgone conclusion without understanding it. You are, as they say in the business, "cherry picking" data to support your beliefs. That's not science my friend.

It seems you do the same honestly, reading only what you want

"Another participant, Laurie Niles, criticized the study's characterizations, stating that she wasn't asked to identify old vs. new violins, only to state her preferences.

That doesn't invalidate the research. You are clearly new at this. There could be any number of reasons for this, however, to infer that the results say that she was asked if she wasn't is a claim of research fraud which is a pretty serious claim.

Whether they were adjusted or not, whether there were differences, of course, are possible methodological limitations. However, regardless, what is clear is that despite these differences participants still did not get the answer right. In other words, they didn't say "that's a misadjusted old violin" they assumed that the better violin was the old violin. Regardless of the flaws in the study, what's clear is that, for whatever reason, the participants could not correctly attribute their perceptions to actual properties of the violin despite the fact that they believed that they could.

Whenever you have a controversial study like this there is going to be a lot of focus on methodology from naysayers. That doesn't invalidate the work, nor does it support your claims. Of course musicians don't like this, but they are obviously going to be biased and in most cases will lack awareness of that bias.

Now as far as me "cherry picking." No, you again don't understand. Criticism is fine, but that is not a part of the research record. So, please point to the follow up papers that refute the results or provide better results. To be clear, if there aren't any now there will eventually be new work on this. Laurie is not a researcher, her criticism is noted, but it's not peer reviewed.. Moreover, this IS a good example of where Wikipedia is not a primary source and shouldn't be cited as if it is.

As long as we're citing Wikipedia, however, let's not ignore that last comment which further challenges your assertions.

There have been many comparisons of Stradivarius and other old violins with more recent violins since 1817. They generally have found no differences in either subjective impressions or acoustic analysis.[15][16] However, the tests have been criticized on various grounds.[16] In a well-known 1977 experiment, Isaac Stern and Pinchas Zukerman and a classical violin dealer, Charles Beare, listened to a Stradivarius, a Guarneri, and a 1976 British violin. They were also unable to identify which instrument was which, and two of them mistakenly identified the 1976 violin as the Stradivarius.[17]

So, if you want to counter this, it's not enough to just criticize the methods. You have to provide evidence that is of similar stature that demonstrates your assertion. This is fundamental. You are, in essence, claiming that a false statement implies its converse, it does not, that's a rookie mistake.

Oh look, here's an article about a follow up study where many of the concerns from the first study were addressed. As I suspected, it was difficult to get instruments for the study. After the first study was published it became much easier.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com ... round-two/

Note again, that this only supports the claims of the first study while addressing many of the concerns of the naysayers. Players still could not correctly identify old vs new.

It's important here to note that this is your interest. Consequently, you SHOULD already know about this. This is a great example of how you are not taking this as seriously as you claim. You should have already found this before making a broad assertion about violins. I had read the first study some years ago and so I knew of it, but, this particular diversion is not my interest and I'm not here making claims.

This is also how research is done, as I pointed out. Moreover, people don't embark on expensive studies like this without already having done smaller local experiments that might not be publishable. I'm not surprised that the later study confirmed the first, there is virtually no data that supports your assertion, whether it is in a controlled study, or a more ad-hoc study as referenced by Wikipedia.

Take heed of John Solininka's words who was convinced in the first experiment that he could pick the old from new, in his words, he was wrong.

One of the violinists who took part in the experiment, John Soloninka, was convinced he could pick out the old violins from the new ones. He was wrong. "I was playing the opposite of what I thought I was playing," he says.

He has this to say about confirmation bias. This is what thoughtful people do when presented with evidence that counters their beliefs, they change their mind.

That confirmation bias in decision making is very powerful… and you can fool yourself into believing almost anything, and seeing or hearing what you want to hear. So if it is violin, or wine, or venture capital investing or anyone one of many complex, preference-based, subjective decisions we make, we should ensure we are being objective and control for our biases.

[Nowhk]

That doesn't invalidate the research.

But research doesn't confirm it as well It just a percentage. Would you totally rely on a percentage?

However, regardless, what is clear is that despite these differences participants still did not get the answer right. In other words, they didn't say "that's a misadjusted old violin" they assumed that the better violin was the old violin.

But no There weren't a right answer. They just did a preference. Its well documented.

You are, in essence, claiming that a false statement implies its converse, it does not, that's a rookie mistake.

I will raise my hand and say "Sorry, I was very an biased idiot" if I realize that the perceived sounds I get its always the same across different environments (or doesn't matter, whatever this would means). I'm not CLAIMING this (BLOODY HELLLL stop saying this). I'm trying to understand if its a bias or not (i.e. why it seems I got different "sounds" characters within my brain).

The strange things is that you claim IT IS due to test like this on violins, that proof nothing in essence.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com ... round-two/
...
It's important here to note that this is your interest. Consequently, you SHOULD already know about this. This is a great example of how you are not taking this as seriously as you claim. You should have already found this before making a broad assertion about violins. I had read the first study some years ago and so I knew of it, but, this particular diversion is not my interest and I'm not here making claims.

Its just another similar experiment (yes, I didn't read it in the past, I do now; did you read any scientific articles in the world? nice for you), it has the same relevance of the first, regard this subject.
The only difference is it count of points, which is nice. But again:

- Fritz writes, “We can find no plausible scoring system by which the old fare any better.”
- They rated the old and new violins similarly in terms of overall quality, but gave the new ones higher scores in all the other categories. The concert hall closed the gap slightly, but not enough to turn the tide in favour of the old.
- The results are very clear: Stradivarius violins, despite their reputation, inordinate price tags, and indisputable craftsmanship, are no better than the best modern ones.

The only "point" which could be at your favour (damn, its bad to say in this way; I still believe that's not a race) is this:

team asked the soloists to guess whether they were playing an old or new instrument. They were wrong half the time.

This doesn't mean the other half was guessing. Saying But let us reiterate: ten violinists—among the best in the world—couldn’t tell the difference between the old and new violins after this is really exaggerated in my opinion.

Anyway, this blind test compared to my puzzlement about impact of environments is not so equivalent: its like (as they are all violins) to compare similar flat speakers (or similar loudspeakers) each other. I agree I would unlikely catch differences. My (hypothesis) "it matter" is between different kind of setups (which are different targets).

When you says (for n times) "it doesn't matter" when speaking about variances introduced by setups/environment, do you mean (talking about a human kind's long time and singolar period listening) "it doesn't because he won't really perceive the differences" or "it doesn't because the differences will be so small so that he will ignore them"?

Easy question I think. You can also reply with "the first" or "the latter". Pretty curious...

Please, I really want your reply at this question. Let me help to understand what you meant claiming it has no matter. So I can (at least) align to your think...

[Nowhk]

"It still doesn't matter" is again your only personal opinion, against my hypothesis (its just a fXXXXXg hypothesis, not a claim, because I'm still not sure myself; thats what trigger this discussion) that maybe it could matter.

My word, you're still at it. Somewhere in the last 15-16 pages things may have got a little confused.

Why don't you help things along by stating your hypothesis for us as clearly and as succinctly as possible? What exactly is it that you hypothesise?

Steve

Sorry dude, I jump your post accidentally.
Well, I've already express it many times here, but I repeat myself gladly
p.n. for hypothesis I mean a temporary idea/thesis that need to be approved.

My (original) hypothesis is, related to a single music listener experience during its life: since every setups/environments add colors to the playing records (you confirm this), and thus every playback impact the sound you are perceiving (you confirm this), as well with your bio and mood status, and many other factors, the song itself conceptually is constantly changing during your life, it can't be defined as concrete/fixed/unique. It changes accordly to the way it is being consumed by the user in that moment with his devices. This means that the listener in fact is partecipating to what the song is in the moment he is getting it. Therefore, this also means that producer/artist who "make" it just place the "basis" of what the song will become when a listener will access to it using different setups/environments.

"At my signal, unleash hell..."

[ghettosynth]

That doesn't invalidate the research.

But research doesn't confirm it as well It just a percentage. Would you totally rely on a percentage?

As an engineer who took statistics courses you should be embarrassed at reading your own response. All science is about evidence supporting theory. There is and should always be doubt. I feel like anyone who doesn't understand this basic idea isn't ready for this conversation. New evidence may support a new position. However, don't take this to mean that any half-baked thought, such as your own, qualifies as a theory. It does not. There may be invisible teapots floating in space on the dark side of the moon, but it's not reasonable to believe that because we have no evidence of such.

You made a bold and confident claim. All of the evidence presented so far refutes your claim. So, if you have some new evidence, then by all means present it. Note, you putting blankets over your speakers isn't evidence.

Your job isn't to find doubt in the existing research record, that will always be there, it's to find evidence in the research record that supports your position.

[Nowhk]

As an engineer who took statistics courses you should be embarrassed at reading your own response. All science is about evidence supporting theory. There is and should always be doubt.

Not in math. Not in computer science. Or at least I never encounter dubts there.
Just two examples...

You are still not reply to my last (easy) question to you. Pity...

[ghettosynth]

As an engineer who took statistics courses you should be embarrassed at reading your own response. All science is about evidence supporting theory. There is and should always be doubt.

Not in math. Not in computer science. Or at least I never encounter dubts there.
Just two examples...

Formal CS relies heavily on mathematics for its research structure. Mathematics is not science, it's mathematics. If you did not encounter empirical fields in computer science then you are simply sheltered. I'm not surprised and that's not criticism, most undergraduates don't get a lot of exposure to research. However, you are absolutely and completely incorrect if you think that such research doesn't exist in CS. Moreover, we aren't talking about CS, or mathematics, are we?

http://euclid.trentu.ca/math/sb/misc/mathsci.html

How many tens of thousands of papers would you like me to link?

If you didn't get exposure to these ideas in school then you are simply unprepared to tackle this topic. As I said pages ago, you have a lot of reading to do. I'm not interested in answering your questions in the same way that a parent tires of a child's annoying questions. They are nonsense on their face.

[rifftrax]

This whole thing has turned into the most incredible example of navel gazing I might ever have read.

But that seems to be a pretty common theme around these parts.

[slipstick]

Sorry dude, I jump your post accidentally.
Well, I've already express it many times here, but I repeat myself gladly
p.n. for hypothesis I mean a temporary idea/thesis that need to be approved.

My (original) hypothesis is, related to a single music listener experience during its life: since every setups/environments add colors to the playing records (you confirm this), and thus every playback impact the sound you are perceiving (you confirm this), as well with your bio and mood status, and many other factors, the song itself conceptually is constantly changing during your life, it can't be defined as concrete/fixed/unique. It changes accordly to the way it is being consumed by the user in that moment with his devices. This means that the listener in fact is partecipating to what the song is in the moment he is getting it. Therefore, this also means that producer/artist who "make" it just place the "basis" of what the song will become when a listener will access to it using different setups/environments.

"At my signal, unleash hell..."

So what's taken all these pages then? As stated that "hypothesis" is so obviously true that any controversy has to be nit-picking and misunderstanding. Music as produced is not heard identically by all listeners and is not even heard identically at all times by a single listener. Is there anyone who doesn't already know that?

OTOH that has nothing do with preferring or recognising violins so perhaps you haven't exactly stuck to that hypothesis.

Steve

[ghettosynth]

Sorry dude, I jump your post accidentally.
Well, I've already express it many times here, but I repeat myself gladly
p.n. for hypothesis I mean a temporary idea/thesis that need to be approved.

My (original) hypothesis is, related to a single music listener experience during its life: since every setups/environments add colors to the playing records (you confirm this), and thus every playback impact the sound you are perceiving (you confirm this), as well with your bio and mood status, and many other factors, the song itself conceptually is constantly changing during your life, it can't be defined as concrete/fixed/unique. It changes accordly to the way it is being consumed by the user in that moment with his devices. This means that the listener in fact is partecipating to what the song is in the moment he is getting it. Therefore, this also means that producer/artist who "make" it just place the "basis" of what the song will become when a listener will access to it using different setups/environments.

"At my signal, unleash hell..."

So what's taken all these pages then? As stated that "hypothesis" is so obviously true that any controversy has to be nit-picking and misunderstanding. Music as produced is not heard identically by all listeners and is not even heard identically at all times by a single listener. Is there anyone who doesn't already know that?

OTOH that has nothing do with preferring or recognising violins so perhaps you haven't exactly stuck to that hypothesis.

Steve

We say "vacuously true." It's a meaningless statement and yet he's trying to assert this should somehow have meaning beyond mastering and implications for producers, even going so far as to suggest that, it should raise the question: since every listening experience is different, what's the point of making music? The words "participate" and "basis" are a vast overstatement.

From any sort of meaningful statistical basis, the statement is false. Eleanor Rigby is Eleanor Rigby whether you hear it on a pocket radio or in a concert. He's been asked several times to elaborate on why anyone should care about this but just keeps moving the goalposts and bringing up more nonsense.

It's like saying everyone who eats Gordon Ramsey's signature Beef Wellington experiences it differently so we can't say that it's meaningfully different from a TV dinner. Or that saying it depends on which plate you eat it from. Of course we can, the common experience of Gordon's Beef Wellington, or Eleanor Rigby completely swamps minor differences regarding how it's consumed and nobody would assert that, as a diner, that you are "participating" in the cooking of the meal. GTFOH!

Hypothesis my ass!

[Chandran]

The choice of an instrument is also due to playability "the feel you have when you touch the instrument and how the instrument responds to the fingers..." And also the sound the musician ear when he plays, every person with serious musical training know the huge difference betwen the sound he ears and the sound the audience ears! That's why some violin, flute, doublebass...manufactures wins! Perhaps the sonic différence whe ears from the audience side is little however the emotional quality of the music is the result from the musician sensibility who is inspired or not by the quality off what he ears and touch. Judging the manufacture quality of an instrument is more complex than just comparing recorded sound...Same théory aply for every sound tool (monitoring, processors, mixer...)When you work with your favorite HW eq the resul can be massively different from what you get from your 98% exact sounding emulation vst just because the HW got knobs and the feel you have when you touch it! (This doesn't means the result from the vst is inferior just different, and like the violin is about the feel the engeener have)